Book Review: Kiss That Frog!

Book Review: Kiss That Frog!

There are plenty of blogs and websites out there that attempt to lift your spirits and turn negatives into positives, and Brain Tracy and Christina Tracy Stein have now written a book on the subject. Kiss That Frog! 12 Great Ways to Turn Negatives into Positives in Your Life and Work promises to deliver simple (and yet powerful) techniques that can take every problem you face and turn it on its ear, creating a more positive feeling.

And it, in fact, does deliver.

Kiss That Frog offers a step-by-step process to help you take all of the negatives going on in your life and work and transform them into something that can work for you. The seven steps outlined in the book are as follows:

Engage in positive self-talk. Rather than saying negative things about yourself and your experiences, you should “change your scripts”.

Consume positive mental food. One way to do this is by reading motivating and inspiring books (and blogs — like Lifehack, for example).

Engage in positive training and development. You can do this by committing to lifelong learning.

Practice positive health habits.

Develop positive expectations. Do this by not allowing yourselves to be negative (or even skeptical).

The authors point out that expectations and lives are both something that we can control and the negative thoughts (and resulting emotions) can cause you to get stuck in a rut of negativity for longer than we’d like to imagine — or admit. They argue that if you take charge of your life, you can transform your negative experiences into positive ones and break free from that rut of your own making. Powerful stuff, but simply stated and something that readers both familiar with Tracy’s work and new to it can buy into very easily.

To be fair, Kiss That Frog doesn’t explore waters that haven’t been before, but instead serves as a reminder on how to make sure you have a framework in place to make it happen. A lot of books (and blogs) do this, but Tracy and Tracy Stein do this adeptly throughout — making the process accessible for readers of all varieties. While Lifehack readers may not be unaware of these steps (because they’ve been discussed several times at Lifehack, for example), having a refresher is worthwhile for sure.

If you’re finding that you’re mind tends to go to the negative far more than the positive, then Kiss That Frog is going to be a great read for you. If not, then it doesn’t hurt to have this book staring at you from your bookshelf when you mind does go there.